It began, as most great things do, with a single idea and a fair bit of courage.
Back in 1974, when talk of gender diversity could hush a room faster than a power cut, Mr Sutham Phanthusak opened the doors to a modest cabaret in Pattaya. He called it Tiffany’s Show.
Fifty years on, it’s hard to imagine Thailand’s entertainment scene without it. The sequins, the lights, and the unmistakable confidence of the performers are all born from one man’s belief that beauty and talent aren’t confined by gender and that a properly lit stage can illuminate much more than faces.
That belief carried the Phanthusak family to the Asia Pacific Enterprise Awards (APEA) 2025 Thailand Chapter in Bangkok this August. The show’s managing director, Dr Darin Phanthusak, was named Master Entrepreneur. Tiffany’s itself was honoured with the Inspirational Brand Award. Not bad for a family business that started with borrowed costumes and a defiant spirit.
From taboo to tradition
In the early years, Sutham’s cabaret was as much an act of rebellion as it was of entertainment.
He saw a possibility where others saw controversy. The performers he hired were transgender women and gender-diverse artists found in Tiffany’s, not only a stage but a home. Pattaya’s fishermen might have raised an eyebrow, but audiences came. Then more came. And soon enough, Tiffany’s was selling houses and rewriting the country’s cultural vocabulary.
What began as an evening curiosity became, within a generation, a national treasure.
And now, under his daughter’s care, Tiffany’s has become something else entirely: a business with a conscience, and an enduring symbol of how far Thailand has come in embracing diversity while staying true to its roots of hospitality and grace.
A daughter’s promise
When Dr Darin Phanthusak took over, she inherited a company and a creed. “Be compassionate and never abandon those who have helped build this company, which is like our own family,” her father told her.
It wasn’t a mission statement scribbled on a whiteboard; it was a principle, handed down and honoured daily. Darin took that to heart.
Armed with a Bachelor’s degree and, later, a stint in corporate banking (“to learn how the outside world works,” she says), she returned to Pattaya with spreadsheets in one hand and sentiment in the other.
She modernised the family’s accounting and HR systems but kept the heartbeat intact.
“My management style is to coach and empower others,” she says. “Everyone should have the freedom to voice their opinions.”
It’s a rare sentence in corporate Thailand, but it’s still rarer when it rings true.
A business that built a bridge
In 2025, Tiffany’s Show will mark its 50th anniversary, half a century of applause, perseverance, and progress. Its stage now hosts over 200 transgender performers, each a story of courage in heels and high definition.
But behind the satin and spotlight sits a remarkably disciplined business model. Tiffany’s isn’t just a show, it’s a cultural institution, a tourist magnet and, increasingly, a media brand with its eye on the digital frontier.
Dr Darin is already exploring partnerships with Netflix and HBO, planning biographical films and online products for the LGBTQ+ community. “The future audience,” she says with quiet certainty, “lives both in the theatre and online.”
If that sounds ambitious, it’s only because it is. But then again, so was opening Tiffany’s in 1974.
Recognition beyond the footlights
At the APEA 2025 ceremony, her dual recognition as Master Entrepreneur for her and Inspirational Brand for Tiffany’s felt like vindication for decades of unheralded perseverance.
The awards, organised by Enterprise Asia and supported by PR Newswire, are not given for sentiment. They honour strategic leadership, sustained growth, and measurable social impact, which Tiffany’s has in abundance.
Yet for Darin, success has never been just about numbers. She co-authored the global leadership book Unboss, is a board member of the SafeguardKids Foundation, and is an honorary member of the Baden-Powell Fellowship.
But she still speaks most proudly of her team, “our family,” as she calls them and the hundreds of performers whose careers began under the shimmering archway of Tiffany’s.
Half a century of humanity
What makes Tiffany’s remarkable is not just its longevity but its sincerity. In a region where entertainment can often feel transactional, this family enterprise stands for something nobler: discipline, integrity, resilience and collaboration.
It has weathered recessions, moral crusades, and even pandemics, and yet, each night, the curtains still rise, and the lights still illuminate the faces of performers who once wondered if the world would ever let them shine.
That’s the true measure of leadership: keeping the lights on and the dream alive.
As Thailand’s tourism sector looks toward new frontiers, Tiffany’s remains one of its brightest exports: an enterprise that began as a rebellion and matured into respectability without ever losing its sparkle.
Fifty years on, the promise is still the same: family, fairness, and a little flair.
And as her father would have said, with that gentle smile only old showmen have: the show must go on.
By Yves Thomas
BIO:
Something quietly magnetic about Yves Thomas is the poised calm of someone who’s seen the world from both sides of the reception desk. A graduate of Bangkok University International, Yves earned her Bachelor of Arts in International Tourism and Hospitality Management and stepped straight into the beating heart of Thailand’s travel industry. She worked with some of the country’s finest destination management companies, mastering the art of making other people’s holidays unforgettable.
In time, the call of the open road grew louder than boardroom meetings. Yves packed her bags, swapped conference calls for compass points, and set off to rediscover the joy of travel on her own terms. Somewhere between Chiang Mai and Copenhagen, she began writing small reflections that soon became her travel blog, a journal full of warmth and insight.
Now calling Hua Hin home, Yves has joined Global Travel Media to share those reflections with a broader audience, not as a publicist, but as a storyteller with a traveller’s soul and a professional’s eye for detail.
